


Over the Still World

by mutationalfalsetto



Series: Head Down, Eyes Forward [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Weightlifting, Cheburashka, Christmas, Christmas Angst, Gen, Light Angst, awful holiday e-cards
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-25
Updated: 2016-12-25
Packaged: 2018-09-12 03:19:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9053092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mutationalfalsetto/pseuds/mutationalfalsetto
Summary: Bucky's second Christmas in Yakutsk.





	

**Author's Note:**

> You don't really have to read Lockout for this to make a ton of sense but if you'd like to, then this might make more sense than the sense it was already making.

Yakutsk winters are unforgiving in a way that makes his body ache for the damp cold of crowded city streets. He dreams of sickly gray snow, piling like the buildings pile up one on top of the other, a small village of motor oil, debris, and frozen water. He remembers—or maybe he dreams of—the way his mother pulled him away from the small hills on the corner of his block when he reached for them with chubby, red fingers. He remembers crying.

Bucky looks outside now and wants to go back in time so he can yell at his past self for being such a dramatic shit. 

He’d yell at himself right now for being a dramatic shit, too, except his stomach feels like it’s full of something heavier than cement. It collapses his legs and stoops his shoulders as he stands at the window, listening to the sounds of the city waking around him, the sound of Natalia moving in the kitchen.

There’s nothing outside his window except ice and snow and worlds away a city waking up to a layer of white blanketing everything, the soft sound of bells reminding everyone that it’s okay to stop moving for today. The same softness, the same strange weightless tranquility, threatens to worm its way into his muscles. He takes a few steps closer to the cool glass of the window, releases a soft breath as the sensation skitters away.

Natalia got him a little calendar when he first came into the Yakutsk airport, eyes burning with jetlag and dehydration. His mouth tasted like cheap toothpaste and even cheaper coffee and he felt uncomfortable standing within a foot of her, convinced the tiny travel-sized deodorant wasn’t doing enough to cover the smell of approximately 14 hours of air travel and the occasional freshening up in a too-small bathroom. 

She handed the gift to him, contained only in a paper bag from the bookstore where she picked it up. “ _Добро пожаловать_ ”. Like someone rewound an audio recording with the sound still going.

And he knew some words, but not enough. He knew from the words he heard Aleksander use on the telephone, from the announcers in the competitions and the training camp. He knew the sport-specific words and the bark of “еще раз”, but this was something different.

“Thanks.” Because _спасибо_ wasn’t fucking there.

The little calendar was something of a joke, by the way Natalia’s lips twitched up at the corners. There was an animal on the box, some kind of monkey-bear hybrid that stared up at him with big eyes and little oval eyebrows. It looked inviting, understanding and innocent. 

“Чебурашка,” is what Natalia said.

The calendar is bigger this year with enough space for him to write himself notes, something that doesn't require him to tear a page off every day. Чебурашка stares thoughtfully up at him from each month. Sometimes, the little creature has a friend, a crocodile in a little black hat, and sometimes he’s all alone. He feels a twinge of disappointed when the character for March is none other than _Старуха Шапокляк_ and her pet rat.

He doesn’t have to look at the calendar to know what day it is, he knows just like his body seems to know. Like it seems to wake up in the early hours of the morning with his heart pounding, ears straining for the soft shuffle of footsteps on the carpet, maybe hooves on the roof several stories above his head. He doesn’t believe in it anymore but that doesn’t mean he can’t remember that excited moment, heart stuttering in his chest—hand moving to jostle his sister’s shoulder like she’s not already awake “ _becca, becks, hey listen_ —“

Their last exchange was some bullshit animated e-card he sent her on Thanksgiving. When you turned the sound on it played “Livin’ La Vida Loca” but with gobbling turkeys instead of words. Now that he thinks about it maybe it wasn’t the most appropriate, all things considered.

Hindsight, etc.

Something brushes against the leg of his pajama pants. Liho, who has no sense of privacy, mewls far too loud for such a small cat.

“Что?” 

Liho meows like all the suffering of mankind has been placed on his tiny back. His tail moves back and forth, not the twitching he gets when there’s a mouse in the apartment (which happens often, if Bucky’s being entirely honest) but a vibration that sets his whole ass in motion. It would be funny if he wasn’t _still meowing_.

“Ты не ели?” It sounds clunky in his mouth, a tape that isn’t rewinding like it should.

Another long, pitiful meow, because Liho is spoiled.

His tongue gets twisted around the words, the syllables. “Fine.”

He takes his blanket-cape and shuffles into the main room in the apartment, Liho prancing beside him. Natalia is sitting at the kitchen table in front of a bowl of porridge and a cup of coffee. She’s looking through her program for the day, little red notations in the margins indicating that she’s already making edits. Anything to get her out of stair pulls.

“He ate,” she says simply. “You ruin him.” 

“Spoil.” He shakes the carafe in the coffee machine. Natalia left a little, because she is probably an angel descended from on high.

“No.” Natalia’s response is punctuated by the sharp sound of porcelain on wood as she sets down her coffee mug. “Ruin. He gets fat.”

“That’s not gonna ruin him, Natasha.” 

She looks skeptical but returns to her porridge. Bucky fixes himself two sandwiches, sausage on one and cheese on the other. 

They eat in silence, broken by Liho’s increasingly desperate meowing.

After one particularly long complaining spell courtesy of the small terror sitting next to his feet, Bucky says (around a mouthful of bread and cheese): “It’s Christmas.” 

Natalia doesn’t do startled very well. “It is January?” She looks like maybe her entire life has been a lie up until this point, and she left every electrical appliance in the house on.

Somehow, her English is still better than his Russian. 

“No, like,” Bucky doesn’t know what to do so he takes another bite of his sandwich. The cheese sticks to the roof of his mouth and his words come out kind of muffled. “Christmas. Like my Christmas.”

Liho mewls.

Natalia relaxes back into her seat. “Какого чёрта.”

“Прости.” Like someone slamming their hand on a fucking piano. _Proh-stee_. 

“Oh.”

The cheese unsticks. It doesn’t mix well with his coffee. 

“Счастливого Рождкства.”

He thinks of the animated turkeys singing “Livin’ La Vida Loca”.

His stomach hurts.

“Спвсибо.”

**Author's Note:**

> Uh.
> 
> \- This is [Cheburashka](https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/92/bf/ff/92bfff713485ca6aaaa2647f670325fa.jpg), his pal Gena, and Old Lady Shapoklyak, who is actually the antagonist. Apparently Cheburashka is the size of a five-year-old child, and I have no idea what kind of animal he is (and neither does anyone else). Not pictured: Old Lady Shapoklyak's pet rat, Lariska. But like, it's a rat.  
> \- My Russian is questionable in its reliability, but (in order of appearance):  
> Добро пожаловать = welcome  
> спасибо = thank you  
> Чебурашка = Cheburashka  
> Старуха Шапокляк = Old Lady Shapoklyak  
> Что = what  
> Ты не ели = you haven't eaten  
> Нет = no  
> Какого чёрта = what the fuck  
> Прости = I'm sorry  
> Счастливого Рождкства = Merry Christmas


End file.
